


Operation: Make Big Brother Less Sad

by Twilight_Enterprises



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Azula! Deserved! Better!, Because let's be real they were basically brothers, Clearly Azula's hatred overtook her love at some point, Gen, He doesn't understand the concept of his little sister loving him, I have a strong belief, I mean, Kiyi has noticed, Kiyi is Good at Feelings, Kiyi is a Good Sister, Lu Ten had one for his baby cousin, POV Kiyi, Post-Canon, Sometimes thinking about Lu Ten makes Zuko sad, THERE IS A DISTINCT LACK OF ZUKO AND KIYI FAMILY FICS AND IT IS A PROBLEM, This nickname is Koko, Toph Beifong and Kiyi are Siblings, Toph Beifong and Zuko are Siblings, Zuko (Avatar) is Bad at Feelings, Zuko (Avatar) is a Good Brother, Zuko is a bit depressed, Zuko is an Awkward Turtleduck, subsequently, that since Azula had a cute nickname for her big brother, there is also a distinct lack of Kiyi fics in general and this is also a problem
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-02
Updated: 2020-12-02
Packaged: 2021-03-10 07:54:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27847246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Twilight_Enterprises/pseuds/Twilight_Enterprises
Summary: Kiyi has noticed that Zuko gets really sad sometimes. It bothers her, so she tries to make it better.It works (kind of.)Zuko's just not used to feeling loved, is all.Kiyi has to spell it out for him.
Relationships: Kiyi & Zuko (Avatar), Toph Beifong & Zuko
Comments: 14
Kudos: 228





	Operation: Make Big Brother Less Sad

**Author's Note:**

> Whaaaat? Meee? Writing something that isn't Linked Universe??? It happens, apparently. 
> 
> Right, so a few months ago, I was at my friend's house (back when we were still allowed to have social bubbles) and she sat me down and made me watch the first four episodes of Avatar: The Last Airbender. I thought it was kind of meh.  
> It took me a very long time to finish season one, and then a couple of weeks ago, I sat down and watched fifteen episodes of season two in one sitting. Needless to say, I was hooked.  
> Now I've finished watching season three, and I just.  
> The last two episodes.  
> The ATMOSPHERE. THE MUSIC. THE FEELING OF UTTER HOPELESSNESS DURING THE FIGHT BETWEEN ZUKO AND AZULA. THE GODDAMN LIGHTNING.  
> AANG GRABBING OZAI'S GOAT BEARD AND EMERGING FROM THE RUBBLE IN THE AVATAR STATE.  
> BLOODY ICONIC.
> 
> So anyway, there's my little tirade about an animated children's show that initially aired fifteen years ago. Y'know, just in case y'all weren't feeling old.  
> (But in all seriousness, it was bloody amazing and I didn't realise how much of a hole there was in my life until ATLA filled it.)

It was something Kiyi had noticed in the months following her family taking up residence in the Fire Nation Palace. 

Some days Zuko was really, really sad. Those were the days when he would whisper, “Please don’t call me Zuzu today” or simply shake his head and not say anything all day. Those were the days when Toph, who seemed to be Kiyi’s unofficial big sister (Zuko’s unofficial little sister), would take one “look” at Zuko and make the executive decision to hand off the Fire Lordiness off to Uncle Iroh and drag Zuko around doing meaningless tasks. 

Sometimes, on those days, Zuko would let Kiyi call him Koko. Sometimes he wouldn’t let her call him anything but Big Brother. 

Sometimes he just held her like the whole world would fall apart if he let go. 

On the days Zuko was sad, Kiyi was sad too. She hadn’t known him for very long, but he’d become something of a rock for her. If she ever felt sad or scared or angry, Zuko would let her cry all over his fancy robes or rant until her voice hurt or cling to him like a limpet-snail. 

Kiyi wanted to be able to do for her big brother what he did for her. 

But she couldn’t. Which was quite possibly what led to the Nightmare. 

The Nightmare was, unfortunately, a regular occurrence. Every time Zuko had a sad day, Kiyi would have the Nightmare. 

In the Nightmare, Zuko would be sadder than usual. Kiyi would always try to cheer him up, but he would always shake his head, and eventually get annoyed. Then she would look away for two seconds, and when she looked back, he would be gone. Gone like he’d never even been there in the first place. 

Zuko - real Zuko, not Nightmare Zuko - always let her crawl into bed with him after. He’d let her snuggle close, then whisper that he’d always be there for her.

He always sounded a little wistful when he said that. It made Kiyi wonder what he was thinking of. 

He asked her not to call him Zuzu then, too. 

Kiyi had the Nightmare again. Zuko hadn’t even been sad that day, so she didn’t know why. It was still scary though. 

So she slid out of her room and toddled into Zuko’s. 

He wasn’t sleeping. Just meditating. The candle in front of him flared and waned hypnotically with his breath. 

Kiyi stared at it for a moment. She didn’t want to disturb him… 

“Hi, Kiyi,” Zuko said quietly. He didn’t open his eyes, but he smiled softly. “Did you have a nightmare?”

She nodded, even though he couldn’t see her. “I had  _ the  _ Nightmare,” she replied. 

He chuckled. “Well, come here then.” He gestured to his lap, finally opening his eyes. 

She crawled into his arms. “You always vanish in the Nightmare. I never know why.”

“I’ll always be here for you, my little ray of sunshine.”

“You always sound sad when you say that,” Kiyi informed him. 

Zuko looked surprised. “I do?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh.”

And then Zuko’s hand was carding through her hair. She twisted her neck awkwardly to meet his eyes (which, on an unrelated note, she called sunrise eyes).

“Why?”

His hand stilled, then started moving again. “You’ve met Azula, right?”

Kiyi nodded. “She’s your other little sister.”

“That’s right. I suppose I sound sad when I say I’ll always be here for you because… well, I wasn’t always there for her. I failed her. I looked at her and I could only see bad things. At some point I stopped seeing my baby sister and started seeing an enemy. It took me too long to realise that she had a lot of the same insecurities as me, but just showed it differently. She was just as afraid as I was. But I didn’t see it until she was already too far gone; she’s only recently recovered. I guess I just don’t want to make the same mistakes with you. I don’t want to push you down bad paths because I wasn’t there to support you.”

Kiyi snuggled closer to his chest, revelling in his natural warmth. “Then I should always be there for you, Big Brother.”

Zuko let out a surprised laugh. “What’s brought this on, Sunshine?”

“The Nightmare.”

“...The one I always disappear in?”

“Mm-hm. Every time you’re sad first. You’re having a sad day, but Toph isn’t there to make you feel better. So I try to make you feel better, but it never works. And then you get annoyed, so I look away, and then… then you’re gone.”

Zuko’s arms tightened around her. If the way his breath hitched was anything to go by, he knew exactly what that meant. But he didn’t tell her, and she was rather okay with that. 

“I think I’d like it if you could be there for me,” Zuko said softly. “But you’re so little. You just don’t have enough life experience to understand. And some of the things that bother me are bad things that I want to protect you from. I don’t know if you’ll be able to help me until you’re older.”

Kiyi squirmed until he let her go. She got to her feet, put her hands on his shoulders, and looked him dead in the eye. “I can do what you do,” she told him. “I can hug you and listen to you complain even if I don’t understand what you’re complaining about. And we can feed the turtleducks together.” She stopped, realising he looked completely stunned. 

She really had no idea how he could be so smart and so stupid at the same time. 

“I - you - you’re very passionate about this,” Zuko said hoarsely. “I just don’t - I don’t think I fully understand why?”

Kiyi wanted to smack her forehead like Toph did every time someone forgot she was blind. 

“Because you’re my big brother and I love you,” she said. “And I don’t like it when you get all sad like that. It makes  _ me  _ sad, because I want you to be happy and you’re not.”

Zuko made an odd choking noise, and then Kiyi was back in his arms being squeezed so tightly she could barely breathe. But she didn’t complain; not when she felt a suspicious wetness in her hair.

She ignored the fact that she had just made her big brother cry and hugged him back. She had a feeling he needed this. 

When the feeling of his tears in her hair stopped, Kiyi finally trusted herself to speak.

“Are you gonna be less sad now?”

Zuko huffed a shaky laugh. “Yeah, Sunshine. I think I am.” He pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “Do you think you can go back to sleep?”

Kiyi nodded, and her big brother twisted to grab a blanket from his bed. He bundled it around them, tucking it neatly around his shoulders and under Kiyi’s chin. 

“Zuzu?” she whispered.

“Yeah?”

“Can you sing to me?”

His chest vibrated as he replied. “Only if you promise to close your eyes.”

Kiyi quickly complied. Soon her brother’s voice - much prettier than he always said it was - filled the room. 

_ “Leaves from the vine, falling so slow, _

_ Like fragile, tiny shells, drifting in the foam…” _

Kiyi’s awakeness felt heavy, like that one time she’d picked up Zuko’s dao. 

_ “Little soldier child, come marching home…”  _

She was lulled into the warm, welcoming darkness as Zuko held her even closer to his chest. 

_ “Brave soldier child, comes marching home.” _

Ursa and Iroh agreed, the next morning, to never mention to either Zuko or Kiyi that they had both fallen asleep on the floor, tangled in the blanket that was still half-on Zuko’s bed, cuddled so closely that they looked like they’d been glued together. 

There were some moments that were just too cute to use for blackmail, and this?

This was one of them.

**Author's Note:**

> I would just like to state, for the record, that I haven't actually read the comic where Kiyi is introduced, so I'm sorry if I got anything about her and her situation wrong, but I just love her character so much. I also really love Zuko being happy, so... positive sibling relationships? Adorable late-night sibling snuggles? Zuko singing Leaves from the Vine to his little sister as a lullaby? yes please.  
> Zuko singing Leaves from the Vine to his little sister as a lullaby coming from a headcanon that Iroh sang it to Zuko as a lullaby during the first couple of months of his banishment? Yes PLEASE. 
> 
> Also, I changed the lines "Little soldier boy" and "Brave soldier boy" to "Little soldier child" and "Brave soldier child" because Kiyi is not a boy, and also child is gender neutral, so if Kiyi gets older and decides she doesn't want to be a girl, then big brother Zuko can still sing Leaves from the Vine as a lullaby without changing the words to accommodate his baby sibling's new pronouns, so it can be just like Kiyi remembers it.


End file.
